Bank of America to pay many workers new $750 bonuses for their pandemic work

Bank of America will pay thousands of workers special bonuses for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic, CEO Brian Moynihan said in a companywide memo Friday.

Employees making less than $100,000 a year will get a $750 cash bonus, while those making between $100,000 and $500,000 will get a stock grant. The bonuses will be on top of other bonuses the workers got.

Earlier in the pandemic, branch workers had received a $200 bonus every two weeks while call center workers got double overtime.

“Our company and teammates were called upon to address unprecedented challenges and headwinds in the broader environment, working in support of each other, our clients and the communities where we work and live,” Moynihan said in the memo.

The announcement came after the bank reported its final quarterly earnings for 2020, a year in which it posted nearly $18 billion in profit.

Bank of America employs 212,505 people across the company, with roughly 16,000 in Charlotte, its headquarters city. That figure is down from about 284,000 a decade ago.

Roughly 85% of those employees are working from home during the pandemic. It was one of the first banks to raise its minimum wage to $20 an hour, a task completed last year.

Moynihan pledged last year not to lay off employees during the pandemic. The bank actually grew its headcount by a few thousand during since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March, while the two other major banks in Charlotte, Wells Fargo and Truist, laid off thousands in that period.

This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 10:08 AM.